American dream

The Walls are Tumbling Down

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / 2 Comments

To quote the immortal words of John Mellencamp:

When the walls come tumblin’ down
When the walls come crumblin’ crumblin’
When the walls come tumblin’ tumblin’ down

It may not appear like that to some. One certainly wouldn’t know it by looking only at the surface of things. In fact, at first glance, it may appear as if the United States has lost its damn mind or fallen into an abyss out of which we will never return.

I do not, however, believe this is the case. Every single day we get closer to the final collapse when the shifting sands upon which the “American Dream” was planted opens and swallows the dream, revealing it to have been a lie all along.

When our “great” nation was established 250 years ago, it was made to benefit only a certain few. The idea that all people would be guaranteed “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” has always been a lie. But we bought into it hook line and sinker.

Over the course of the last 250 years, we have little by little seen the intentional obstacles in the system that prevent certain populations from enjoying the benefits of the promised liberties and freedoms. Those of compassion and a sense of justice have pointed out these obstacles and doggedly worked to eliminate them so that more might be free. But with every course correction, the “men in charge” have worked to create more and more limitations to freedom.

A nation divided against itself, as these men intend, cannot stand. Further, a system built out of fear and propped up by gluttony and greed is simply not sustainable. It will eventually fall.

Which is where we find ourselves today. Every single day we are met with a new deception attempting to hold up the system. Some choose to ignore these deceptions and symptoms of corruption, but for those with eyes that can see, we are watching the increasingly rapid tearing away of every lie behind which those in power hide.

It’s exhausting. And yet, as much as it pains anyone with a conscience to see the pure evil that runs our nation and likely our world, we cannot eliminate an evil that cannot be seen. And boy are we seeing it – so much so that on some days I feel like my eyeballs are on fire from all that we are being made to see.

More and more people are beginning to see. People on both sides of the illusionary divide are seeing the evil that has been hiding behind the mask of “democracy” for 250 years. We are no longer living in a Representative Democracy – if we ever truly were. Instead, we are living in a lie where we have been told that our “votes count” and that our elected officials are making decisions on our behalf. Bullshit! Instead, corporations are choosing our “representatives” and paying them to make policy decisions on their behalf.

Corporations now rule our nation. They are the ones making decisions that benefit them – their CEO’s and stockholders. To these corporations, the only thing that matters is how much money they have in their pockets.

But guess what, there are more of us than there are of them. For years, regular Americans have been pitted against each other, made to believe that the cause of our pain is “the other” (people of color, immigrants, Muslims, Jews, Evangelical Christians, independent women, liberals, conservatives, etc. etc. etc. ). The truth many are beginning to see is that we are not each other’s enemy, and we never were. Instead, the enemy is one we have in common:  CORPORATE GREED and the corrupt system that has been built to support that greed.

People are disgusted. People are angry. People are beginning to set down the illusion of separation, tentatively joining hands across the aisle toward a common cause. This common cause is the desire for the system to crumble under the weight of its corruption so that something more fair and just can rise up to take its place – something that more closely resembles the “American Dream” we have chosen to believe in – this time with a firm foundation and a solid framework to insure life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, not just for the very few, but for the all:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. – The Declaration of Independent, July 4, 1776

The Practice of Bearing Witness

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

Today has been a weird day – a study of contrasts of sorts. For me, the day began as it normally does – in prayer. Then a friend and I set out on an art adventure. On both of our minds were the ongoing protests in Los Angeles, along with the “No Kings” protests scheduled all around the country for today – purposefully to coincide with the “Big Beautiful Birthday Parade.” Our shared hope was that the protests be peaceful and the protestors safe. Equally, we voiced our concerns over the state of our nation – the threats to our freedoms, along with the failing system of checks and balances that we were taught were supposed to protect these freedoms.

We are living in uncertain times – times that trigger our fears and appropriately incite our righteous anger. The temptation to react to these triggers through violence is strong. A fire burns within us in the face of injustices being done to our fellow human beings, especially the most vulnerable among us. And yet, violence only begets more violence and burning with hatred solves nothing. Instead, we are invited to seek a different path.

For me, the path has always been quiet, solitary, and non-violent. As an introvert, you will never find me at a protest. Neither will you find me inciting violence against the perceived “other.” Even today, in light of the political assassinations in my own hometown of Minneapolis, I cannot feel hatred toward the assassin. I can only feel deep sorrow for one who is so broken to believe this was the right and appropriate thing to do. Further, my prayers go out to the deceased, their families, and friends.

Our nation is profoundly broken. The easy thing is to choose sides, hating on one while celebrating the other. Out of our instinctual need to feel safe, we might spiral into anticipatory planning – imagining every possible scenario while planning our response. In our need to control, we may believe that taking action is the best response including reacting to every trigger thrown our way.

The reality is this mess is not going to resolve itself overnight. We cannot anticipate the direction this current unfolding of the American experiment will take. We cannot predict what the horse loose in the hospital will do or attempt to do. Really, all we can do is be present to this moment, wait, breathe, and watch. If we are called to respond, take action, speak out, etc., it is only in the present moment that the proper response will be revealed.

For me, this ongoing unfolding/unraveling of the “American Dream” has provided an opportunity for me to hone my practice of non-action as demonstrated in my call to simply be witness. Further, it has shown me over and over my tendency to want to control, change, or fix what I perceive to be disordered or wrong. This practice has carried over not only in relation to American politics, but also into my everyday life.

You see, I’m a recovering perfectionist. For sixty years, I believed it was my job to fix and change everything that (to me) appears to be wrong. With great moral certitude and an eye for judgment, I have spent my life with a gavel in one hand and my pen of righteousness in the other. With troubleshooting as a highly cultivated defense mechanism, resentment and self-righteousness have fueled my journey as I try to share my “gifts” and get met with a brick wall.

Oh yes, I could most definitely be right about what is wrong and I may even know how to fix it……but, is that really my job? Is that why I was put here, to “heal and save the world?” With the amount of resistance I’ve faced because of my “gifts,” I would say “probably not.”

It’s not my job to save the world. It’s not my job to save our nation. It’s not my job to fix what is broken or repair what has gone wrong. Instead, it is my job to cultivate my own peace while bearing witness to all that is happening before me, and to be here for those who might need support in cultivating their own peace in a world gone mad, or to provide comfort to those who find themselves in their own personal battles trying to get through this thing called life.

Life is hard enough without making every conflict our own. As much as it grieves me to admit this, I have found that when we allow things to unfold on their own, they tend to find their own resolution – the horse will one day either find its way out of the hospital or it will die trying.

Turning a Corner?

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / 2 Comments

Sitting in witness of the flailing tantrums of the patriarchy, I can’t help but feel as if the children have started to wear themselves out. At the same time, it seems the grown ups in the room are starting to wake up out of their collective dozing and are beginning to come together for the purpose of intervention. There is a time for letting children flail and sometimes they just need a time out. It seems we are quickly approaching time-out.

All of this coincides with what I’ve been feeling deep in my intuitive self, the flailing and panic that has defined the past several weeks is about to turn a corner. March, I feel, will be made up of an entirely different kind of ending energy.

Remember, we are living through an experiment called representative democracy. This is an experiment that began only 250 years ago. In the scheme of things, this is a very young experiment. There are bound to be bumps in the road, a changing of course, and abject failure. Each failure, every bump, provides us with an opportunity to correct our course – or continue on toward complete and utter collapse.

Course correction would always be my choice. Human beings are flawed and imperfect. As such, so are our creations. Errors in judgment, mistakes and failures provide us with an opportunity to learn and make changes that set us back on the proper course.

The American dream isn’t a bad one. It’s just incomplete. Initially created out of the wound of monarchy, it inadvertently created more of the same – a system that favored a specific few. Each expansion of liberties (for women, people of color, immigrants, etc.) came with a fight. Today, more and more have realized how the system was not made for them, and are seeking to have their place in the American dream. Those for whom the system was originally created, (as always), don’t want that. They believe that ensuring liberties for more deprives them of their perceived freedoms.

How wrong they are. How wrong they have always been. For 250 years it has always been the same demographic of Americans who have fought against liberties for others. Always. Why? Because they come from a place of lack. From this perception of lack, they grab, grasp, clutch, cling to, and hoard …. Well….everything! They have become greedy and gluttonous. They seek after power. They believe that controlling the masses and keeping us small gives them more of what they believe they deserve.

They do not understand that freedom for one means freedom for all. They do not understand that by eliminating obstacles to the American dream and ensuring the freedom of each individual does not make us weaker, but stronger. When the essential needs of each human being are met, our nation will thrive. People will be happier and healthier, They will feel more secure and safe. When human beings feel safe, secure, happy and healthy, they willingly participate in making the world a better place.

I feel a certain kind of sorrow for those men who think they rule our nation. They seem to be frightened little boys who were never shown love and whose only example of masculinity was condemnation and neglect – we can see this in the way they “father” their own children and how they seek to govern our nation. When our childhood wounds are not healed, we are bound to inflict those wounds upon others.

This is exactly what we’ve witnessed in the past several weeks of certain people taking office, and others hired to do a job that has no place in the checks and balances of proper governance.

Things have just been weird. While shock and trauma have seemed to define the past several weeks, we are turning a corner. Of this I am certain.

I’m not saying that overnight things will suddenly get better or tantrumming toddlers will just go away. Instead, I feel as if appropriate course corrections will start to take place. The toddlers are growing tired and are beginning to lose interest in the chaos they have been creating. The system of checks and balances that have (up until now) defined our nation are gathering their resources and galvanizing strength. More importantly, the past several weeks have shown us the holes in the system and where the structure that holds up the so-called American dream has failed. This awareness will provide an opportunity for the system to correct itself, plugging the holes and creating new checks and balances to insure this doesn’t happen again.

Or, the whole thing will collapse upon itself. (shrug). As a people, we’re being given a choice as to how we want to live. Do we want to continue to live by a system built out of an unhealed wound that privileges only some or do we want to live in a way that we can all be authentically free? My choice is the latter. How are you going to choose?

PS:  Remember, true freedom exists within us and is independent of what is happening outside of us. Today I’m speaking of externals over which sometimes we have no control. The inner, however, is always within our grasp!  Focus on that and what is outside will work itself out. All things eventually return to equilibrium.